SAMPLE QUESTION 8

As you read the passage below, consider how the author uses

• evidence, such as facts or examples, to support claims.
• reasoning to develop ideas and to connect claims and evidence.
• stylistic or persuasive elements, such as word choice or appeals to emotion, to add power to the ideas expressed.

 The Customer Is Always Right

The dormitories are ten stories high, bounded by ovals of forest green lawn and narrow brick walkways. The recreation center is enclosed by six thousand square feet of unblemished glass and equipped with no less than thirteen pools, one hundred and fifty-seven treadmills, and a fulltime massage therapist. The football stadium is unmatched, sitting thrice the number of fans as enrolled students. Campus nightlife, with all its shining neon lights and immaculate dance floors, is a tropical haven for the lonesome and homesick. And the admission brochure brags aimlessly that university students are “making the impossible possible.” So, it goes. College is a business, eighteen-year-old-students (and their preferably wealthy parents) the consumers. As appealing as it all sounds, the current university model is failing the student in arguably the most important ways.

Take Psychology 101, now offered on Thursdays at 1 P.M because lethargic and fetid. Student stopped coming on Fridays, and the remaining sleepwalkers were hesitant to enroll in a course before 11 A.M. Next, consider Instructor Evaluation Day, the next-to-last class meeting where a semester’ s worth of interpretive intelligence and deliberation culminates in a 1 to 5 rating; I being “I wish I would have taken this course at the community college down the street and passed” and 5 being “the professor is such a hunk that I totally clicked the chili pepper on ratemyprofessor.com”. Dare we mention exams, when 79% of the class failed so miserably that a curve was fabricated to soothe exasperated parents and riled department chairs? Failing, after all, leads to transfers and drop-outs, which of course means less money, and can this shrinking department really afford any more cuts?

So, where did it all go wrong? Long before admission offices began hiring the top marketing students and graphic designers to sell their respective universities, there was the idea of a college education being somewhat unsettling, something to push and challenge and stimulate and unearth the dissenter within. Prior to softened grades and political correctness, classrooms were marked by tough student-instructor exchange, passionate intellectual debates, and an eagerness to expand thinking. Today, the university model mass produces graduates who can unequivocally repeat facts, memorize definitions and reference experts (at least for a semester at a time), but fails to truly engage, ripen or educate its customers.

Currently, the government rewards universities for innovative research; so, it is hardly surprising that this is where professors direct their focus. Professors, busy with research and ceaseless publishing, have little time to teach. Frequently, teaching is left to inexperienced graduate students who are just as occupied with research and thesis or doctorate writing. And so, the student suffers. On the other end, students are less concerned with notable faculty and demanding curriculum, and more interested in impressing employers. Employers are most enthralled with rankings and selectivity. Meanwhile, colleges, in order to desirable, must keep enrollment low (i.e.  be selective) and, therefore, must charge students more to keep revenue high. And so the student-consumer cycle continues with its first-rate communal bathrooms and seventeen cafeterias, including a Chick-fil-A and, get this, a Starbucks.

Almost half of the college graduates show no improvement in critical thinking, reasoning and writing skills according to Academically Adrift, a recent book that explores the stagnant and, at times, Utterly ineffective U.S collegiate system. Critical thinking and deductive reasoning are not the only arenas in which the university is failing either: the wall street journal asserts that four of every ten college graduates don’ t have the skills needed to manage white-collar work, with less than 2 out of 5 employers finding recent graduate interviewees ready for the workforce. Indeed, the high-points of the American University don’ t seem to include progression, preparedness or professionalization.\

Are we to give up hope and abandon college education? Not exactly. Yet the paradox of the current student-consumer university is something that cannot go on unaddressed. If U.S students fail to complete, it won’ t be long before other job-seekers take advantage of our stupor. One proposal suggests that common tests be given upon admission and graduation to see which colleges are doing their job and which are not. Acknowledging the complexity of testing graduates from a myriad of majors, others turn to the government to back programs that encourage quality graduates. Whichever alternatives we pursue, teaching must regain the foreground.

Write a response that demonstrates how the author makes an argument to persuade an audience that a liberal arts education is valuable. In your response, analyze how the author uses at least one of the features from the essay directions (or features of your own choosing) to develop a logical and persuasive argument. Be certain that your response cites relevant aspects of the source text.

 Your response should not give your personal opinion on the merit of the source text, but instead show how the author crafts an argument to persuade readers.